Chris Barton is the renowned tech pioneer who invented the Shazam music app. His creation — a global phenomenon and Apple’s sixth-largest acquisition of all time — was the first mass-consumer AI product in history, transforming the way the world discovers music. Having played key roles in the early days of Google and Dropbox, Barton’s captivating story inspires audiences to make big things happen in their organizations and create magic in defiance of any and all obstacles.
Founded in 2000, Shazam was far ahead of its time — three years before iTunes and eight years before the App Store. When Barton had the idea to identify music using a mobile phone, no technology existed to make it possible. He was told by professors at both MIT and Stanford that the necessary pattern recognition algorithm was impossible, but he refused to take no for an answer. A true AI pioneer, Barton not only invented an entirely new technology, but also built a search engine supercomputer from scratch, created the world’s largest music database, and found a way to deliver the experience on the very basic mobile phones available at the time.
In 2018, Shazam and its 200 employees were acquired by Apple for a reported $400 million. Today, the app has been downloaded more than two billion times and is used by over 300 million people each month, making it one of the world’s most popular apps. It even inspired the popular game show, Beat Shazam, hosted by Jamie Foxx.
Barton has cemented his position in tech history. Aside from Shazam, he was a founding member of Google’s Android Partnerships team, where he created Android’s mobile operator partnership framework. He later spent four years at Dropbox, where he was one of the company’s first 100 employees and led carrier partnerships. Barton also holds 12 patents, including one found within the Google search algorithm that billions of people use every day.
Today, Barton invests in a wide range of startups, including companies using artificial intelligence for heart health and developing therapeutics for inflammatory disease. He is also building his third company, Guard, an artificial intelligence system designed to detect drowning in swimming pools.
Growing up with undiagnosed dyslexia, Barton struggled academically before learning to approach challenges differently. Today, he calls dyslexia his superpower and believes it helped him overcome barriers and achieve his many accomplishments. As a sought-after keynote speaker, Barton draws from his experience creating new technology and overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles to share lessons in innovation, persistence, removing friction, and entrepreneurship. Through firsthand stories, he gives audiences a framework for making big things happen and inspires them to take action.
Prior to his technology career, Barton was a strategy consultant and earned two master’s degrees from UC Berkeley and Cambridge University.
